EVOLUTION OF ESSENCE OF MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING

Examining the various sources of educational, methodological and scientific literature, you can find many definitions of management accounting, which indicates the lack of a unified methodological approach to the essence of management accounting. This is due to the uniqueness of the organizational basis for establishment of the management accounting system in each economic entity, which is largely determined by the characteristics of its activities and the requirements imposed on management by management information. With the development of technology and organization of production, with diversification of the products, improvement of organizational management structures, increased competition, the need for constant reduction of costs per unit of production, the organization's management requires the new types of information generated through the management accounting subsystem. There have been used the several methods of obtaining the relevant literature, in particular the literature review is concept-oriented, or paradigm-oriented and not author-oriented: using a review of structured literature as a research method, this article addresses the following three research questions: How is the research on management accounting developing? What are the differences between modern accounting and accounting? What is the future of governance accounting, both in practice and in science? We identified the type of research and conducted the comprehensive literature search. The aim of the article is to explore and determine the evolution of the essence of management accounting, the key aspects of development. In the article is discussed the evolution of the development of management accounting, the distinguishing features between the accounting and management accounting, and understanding of the essence of management accounting is evaluated. Based on the bibliographic research and analysis of empirical materials, based on the opinions of experts, elaborated theoretical and materials, it was revealed that managerial accounting has its purpose, subject, objects, tasks and principles, which distinguishes it from accounting. In recent years, the term “management accounting” has become very popular, although there is still an ambiguous attitude in understanding its essence. The management accounting differs from the accounting primarily in that its data is intended not for external users (states, banks, business partners) but for internal “use”. The ultimate goal of management accounting is to help the manager make the right decisions. Therefore, if a simple (financial) accountant must strictly follow the reporting forms and instructions, then the management accounting specialist is free to choose the forms, methods and techniques of analysis, the main thing for him is to properly understand the essence of economic processes in the enterprise and give timely advice to the leader. Management accounting is nothing more than the management information support system. During the decades of its existence, the innate techniques and methods of management accounting have been developed and continue to develop, therefore, it has its own methodology. It can be described as the combination of two main subject areas: as a science; as a practical field of activity.